Tài liệu Sách " What to say when to talk to your self " doc

The human brain, that incredibly powerful personal computer control center that each of us has, is capable of doing for you anything reasonable that you'd like it... WHAT TO SAY WHEN Y

TO Powerful New Techniques SAY to Program

Your Potential for Success!

LOOK FOR BESTSELLING AUTHOR

SHAD HELMSTETTER'S

YOU TALK TO YOURSELF

and

THE SELF-TALK SOLUTION

AVAILABLE FROM POCKET BOOKS

and

CHOICES

Who you are and what you

really want out of life are

the results of the new choices you start to make-

beginning w a y

Let Shad Helmstetter

show you how!

NOW AVAILABLE IN HARDCOVER FROM POCKET BOOKS

ilYHY POSITIVE SELF*l#LK

WORKSI

As much as 77% of what you tell yourself may be working against you! In this life-changing book, you'll discover how the simple, revolutionary technique of Self-Tall< can reverse negative programming, and fill your life with new, vital energy

1) External solutions are temporary The Self-Talk program leads to permanent behavioral change, be- cause you control all the messages-silent, spoken, or written-that your brain receives

2) Self-Tdk is based on the latest scientific develop ments about how the human brain receives and ac-

cepts information If you want to make a change and make it stick, you've got to do it the way the brain works

3) This new, word-for-word programming changes the

conditioning of the subconscious mind-the control center of the brain This specific vocabulary can be used by anyone, at any time, to replace negative programming with positive, new, repeated directions

lWIK TO YOURSELFI

LEARN T H E W O S T H E R1OIITWK)RDS-

OF LIFE, WITH

Blfi#L' TO SAY WHEN YOU 'MLK

TO YOUR SELF1

What to Say When You Talk to Your Self

'Ihe W T & Solution

Published by Pocket Books

Moet RDcket Books are availaMe at special quanttty

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Ftx details write the afllce d the Vice ResMent of

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,

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Copyright O 1982 by Shad Helmstetter

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Among the many fine individuals who have helped make this book possible, I would like to express my gratitude to the patience of my wife, Dellayne, to my friend and associate William Wallace, whose belief and support have been without peer, and to my son Anthony, who lived the principles of this book before it was written 1 would also like to thank Julia Hayes who was willing to be a dedi- cated partner and pioneer in the new frontier of human potential, to my senior editor, R6 Ann Brown, whose contributions to the content and concept of this book were invaluable, and to my copy editor Holly Hill, one of the finest word-smiths I shall ever hope to meet I owe a special debt of gratitude to Sylvia Regelbrugge who, for some forty years of my life, has unfailingly encouraged and always believed I would like to offer a special thank you to my teacher and friend, Barbara Baylis, who taught

me, many years ago, who I am I would also like to extend my warmest thank you to my friend Ray Lind- strom who possesses both genius and belief, to Gregory, who has inspired me more than he knows, to Jeffery, who

is becoming a true achiever, and to Timothy, my youngest

son, who would have felt terribly left out if I did not mention him by name

CHAPTER ONE

You are everything that is,

your thoughts, your life, your dreams come true

You are everything you choose to be

You are as unlimited as the endless universe

LIFE, FOR MOST of US, should be pretty good

We have all heard what life is supposed to offer: endless opportunities, the fulfillment of our dreams, and a chance to live each day in a way that brings happiness and success Most of us want and need at least a successful job or career, a good family life, and reasonable financial security We expect that from life

We know deep inside that we deserve our fair share and we have every right to attain it

Have you ever wondered, then, why things don't work out the way they should? Why do we not get from life many of the things we would like to have- and know we should? Why do some people seem to be

"lucky," while the great majority of the rest of us seem not to be?

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR SELF

Why are some people, day to day, haiPier, more productive, more fulfilled than others? What makes the difference? Is it Kismet, a kind of fate, which in some mysterious way charts our destiny and leaves little of the steering of our course through life up to us?

Is the control of our lives in our hands or isn't it?

And if we can, or should control our lives, what goes

wrong? What holds us back? If we truly would like to

do better, be the way we really would like to be, and

be happier and more successful every day in every

area of living, what is the wall that stands in our way?

fRACTICAL POTENTIAL

Imagine living a life which did not give in to the barriers and the battlements, the hassles and the hur- dles of everyday living Imagine a life filled with the vitality of achievement and the enrichment of daily self-fulfillment To me, for a long time, that kind of life sounded like an impractical dream, a cardboard box 6lled up with daydreams and wishes To live a life of hope, promise, expectation, and achievement was to live the life of someone who lived only in the pages of a

book

When I was quite young I had a soaring imagination Long before I learned what we could not do, I dreamed of doing what I knew we could I remember,

as a young boy, lying on my back in the cool, wet grass

late at night, my mind sinking into the depths of the crystal clear stars that blanketed the summer sky

m A T '30 SAY WHEN YOU T U K TO YOUR SELF

above me I could reach out and touch those stars I wuld imagine any dream and see it come tnre

It was only later that my dreams gave way to more

practical considerations Star-filled heavens, dew-

doms bowed to more rational requirements As I be-

gan to pursue my education inearnest, I began to learn what we could not do In time I becaine more intent an

studying the laws and the limits of man, than on learning the far-reaching extremities of mankind's po- tential

I learned all of the "shou~s," "musts," and "can- not~." I was told that it was bad to have your head in

the clouds and it was good to have your feet on the ground So I extracted my head from the magical

excitement of the universe and got down to business learning about the more practical matters d survival

suspicion that there was more to all of this than was meeting the eye-I just couldn't see it yet

It was years before I decided it was time to stop and look at the stars again But I did The result of that one small decision changed my direction and my life

By the time I stopped and sank once again, u p wards, into the stars, I had completed a twenty-year odyssey which took me from the backroads of a farm- land viUage to the towering offices of New York's Madison Avenue; from a quiet countryside of wheat fields to the negotiating tables of three-piece-suited attorneys and well-groomed marketers My odyssey took me to snow-covered midwestern wliege cam-

puses, and to palm lined streets of western universi- ties

Somewhere, during that time, I began to wonder and

Wf&%T TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK 10 YOUR SELF

dream again, as I kt#i as aayoung boy years before

What if we could? I wondered What if we could find

what's stopping us and turn it around? What if there is

an answer and no one else has looked in the tight

place? What if any of us, at any time, could reach up

and touch the stars?

something called "human behavior." That's some- thing you can get a degree in without ever really

figwing it out It is also something that older people seem to know more about than younger people No matter how many educational degrees my professors could profess, I suspected that some of the grayed and

silver-haired older people I knew had figured out what

human behavior was all about long before we were taught courses in the subject

I next studied something called motivational mar- keting That teaches us what makes people do what they do even when they don't want to do it When I

compIeted my course work, it was my final opinion

that you can never really get anyone to do anything they don't want to do unless you use force I decided that in most of the free world, "force" is called adver-

tising

in time I found myself walking the hallways of

academic psychology It is a good field and it deserves our attention and respect A lot of people have lived richer lives because someone who cared took the time

to listen

Eventually I embarked upon a journey of my own Nowhere in my studies of mathematics, business, religion, or psychology, had I found a concrete solu- tion to the question of how the average individual

could t w c h all the stars in his or her heaven and still keep both feet on solid ground I knew there had to - be

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR SELF

a better way, something that was obvious perhaps, something that might have been overlooked I believed that mastering one's future must surely start with

managing one's "self." And if we could accomplish that, we could manage and master at least a part of what we call "life."

As I continued to study the inner workings of the human mind, I began to look for the answers the

"solutions" which others most certainly must already have found I found dozens of answers But I discov- ered only one solution

THERE ts ALWAYS an answer, af coutse There ace

"tmmer." I caa becum a gmkcttm and a

acitiever." I can learn to oqtardze my day, set cry

possi'Me 1 a u r ~ t o "thiakgmsi&dy," b e m a w

have learned that mcces is dae far the t d c i ~ ~

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR SELF

have to d o is accept my destiny of achievement and greatness I have read great words of wisdom and been told that I can change anything in my life I choose to change

And yet, after learning these great and marvelous truths, and some of them are, I would take with a grain

of salt anyone's claim that they can give you the

"secret of success." If anyone offers you the moon, don't buy it

As much as I have been a student of success, I have also been a skeptic For many years I read and studied and listened And I wondered: If there are so many

"keys" to success, why aren't they working? Why are

1 there shelves full of self-help best-sellers? It seemed to

me that if the books were working as they ought to work, we wouldn't keep needing new ones If there are

so many answers to our questions about what to do to make life better, why have so many people failed at making these great ideas work? Or if they work for a time, what makes them stop working?

Have you ever attended a "pep rally" or a meeting

in which someone gave a rousing motivational speech? Why didn't it last? Have you ever been inspired to

.- change, to achieve, and then stopped? Where did the

! inspiration go?

k The problem is not withPhe books The problem is not with the seminars or with the motivational talks There are a lot of self-help ideas and techniques that

are good They should work-and they could But

they don't work, o r they don't keep working, because

of something that all of us overlooked: That's not how

the brain works

The human brain, that incredibly powerful personal computer control center that each of us has, is capable

of doing for you anything reasonable that you'd like it

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR SELF

to do But you have to know how to treat it If you treat it just right, and carefully give it the right direc-

1

tions, it will do the right thing-it will work for you in

P the right way But if you give your mental computer the wrong directions it will act on those wrong direc- tions; it will continue to respond to the negative pro-

i gramming that you and the rest of the world have been

I giving it without even being aware of it

1'11 give you an example of some of the negative programming most of us have received During the first eighteen years of our lives, if we grew up in fairly average, reasonably positive homes, we were told

"No!," o r what we could not do, more than 148,000

times! If you were a little more fortunate, you may have been told "No!" only 100,000 times, o r 50,000 times however many, it was considerably more nega- tive programming than any of us needs

Meanwhile, during the same period, the first eigh- teen years of your life, how often do you suppose you were told what you can do or what you cart accom- plish in life? A few thousand times? A few hundred? During my speaking engagements to groups across the country, I have had people tell me they could not remember being told what they could accomplish in life more than three or four times! Whatever the number, for most of us the "yes's" we received simply didn't balance out the "no's." The occasional words

of "belief" were just that occasionaLand they were far outweighed by our daily doses of "cannots."

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR SELF

This negative programming that we all received (and still receive) has come to us quite unintentionally It has come to us from our parents (who wanted to protect us); it has come to us from our brothers and sisters, from our teachers, our schoolmates, our asso- ciates at work, wr lifemates, advertising of all kinds, the morning paper and the six o'clock news

Leading behavioral researchers have told us that as much as seventy-seven percent of everything we think

is negative, counterproductive, and works against us

At the same time, medical researchers have said that

as much as seventy-five percent of all illnesses are self-induced It's no wonder What if the researchers

are correct? That means that as much as seventy-five percent or more of our programming is the wrong kind Until very recently no one understood well enough the human mind-how it really works The result was that without knowing what they were doing, and with us not recognizing the immense effect this "casual" pro- gramming was having on us, "they" have been pro-

gramming us in the wrong way Everything and every- one around us, without being aware of it, has been programming us

Unfortunately, most of it was the wrong kind of programming and we took it to heart Year after year, word by word, our life scripts were etched Layer by layer, nearly indelibly, our self-images were created In time, we ourselves joined in We began to believe that what we were being told by others-and what we were telling ourselves-was true No matter how innocently given or subtly implied, we began hearing the same words and thoughts repeatedly; hun-

dreds, even thousands of times we were told, or we toid ourselves, what we could not do, could not ac-

complish Repetition is a convincing argument Even-

i WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR SELF

C

I tually we believed what others told us and what we

t told ourselves most; we began to live out thepicture of

1 ourselves we had created in our minds

! In time we became what we most believed about

ourselves And in so doing, we created a wall, which

i for most of us will stand invisibly but powefiUy

between us and our unlimited futures for as long as our

I old programming remains in force Unless the pro-

gramming we received is erased or replaced with different programming, it will stay with us perma-

I

I nently and affect and direct everything we do for the

I rest of our lives

Fortunately, that doesn't have to be the case

O F YOUR OWN THOUGHTS

I was quite young when I first heard the Biblical passage which reads, "As a man thinketh, so is he." I recall shaking my head, thinking that could not be How could we possibly be what we think? After all, isn't our physical self one thing and our private thought another? Little did I (or most of us then) understand that the Biblical passage had hit the nail of truth squarely on the head It would be years later, however, after much research, and following the dis- coveries through which modern-day neuroscientists had begun to unlock the secrets of the human mind, that I would come to know just how correct how

scient$cally correct-that Biblical passage had been

In the last two decades we have learned more about

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR SELF

the workings of the human brain than was known throughout all history prior to that time We now know that by an incredibly complex physiological mecha- nism, a joint effort of body, brain and "mind," we become the living result of our own thoughts Through scientific discovery we have proved the relationship between our own "mental programming" and the mat- ter of whether we will succeed or fail in any endeavor

we undertake in life, from something as important as a lifetime goal to something as small as what we do in a single day

Have you ever considered just how much of what you do-how you act, how successful you are is dependent on the conditioning, the programming you received from others and on the conditioning you subsequently bought and kept giving yourself? It is virtually impossible for any of us to do anything, no matter how insignificant, without being affected by our conditioning Every step you take, move you make, or word you say is affected

It follows that if every action you take, of any kind,

is affected by prior programming, then the end results

of your actions are equally affected-in short, how successful you will be at anything is inexorably tied to the words and beliefs about yourself that you have stored in your subconscious mind And what is stored there, for most of us, was decided for us by someone else

Think for a moment what you might do differently tomorrow if you were someone else-someone whose programming was different from yours Or what might you do differently if you had been brought up with a completely different, more positive set of attitudes and beliefs and feelings from those which you may have

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR SELF

now-attitudes and beliefs and feelings which in every case would assure you of having an abundance of self- belief, enthusiasm, and achievement?

WHAT COULD YOUR FUTURE HOLD?

If you had just the right kind of successful new mental program, would you be doing the same thing for a living that you are doing now? Would you be doing your job in exactly the same way? What about your personal life? Would you change anything, im- prove anything? Would you have reached any more goals than you have reached? Would you have more money in the bank or any more financial security than

you have now? What about your day-to-day life- would it be less frustrating and more rewarding? And, with different preparation or conditioning, what could your future hold? Would it be the same as your future holds for you today, o r would it be better?

What if each and every day, from the time you were

a small child, you had been given an extra helping of self-confidence, double the amount of determination, and twice the amount of belief in the outcome? Can you imagine what tasks you might accomplish more easily, what problems you would overcome, or what goals you could reach? After all, success, ultimately,

is up to the individual It isn't the pen-it's the writer;

it isn't the road-it's the runner that counts

W h y is it, then, that some accomplish nearly any task more easily than others, achieve their goals more readily, and live their lives more fully? Could it be that those who appear t o be "luckier" than the rest have

24

t WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR SELF

actually only gotten a little better programming, or perhaps have learned how to erase their old negative programming and replace it with something better? After examining the philosophies, the theories, and the practiced methods of influencing human behavior,

I was shocked to learn the simplicity of that one small fact: You will become what you think about most; your success or failure in anything, large or small, will depend on your programming-what you accept fiom others, and what you say when you talk to yourself

It is no longer a success theory; it is a simple, but powerful, fact Neither luck nor desire has the slight- est thing t o do with it It makes no difference whether

we believe it or not The brain simply believes what you tell it most And what you tell it about you, it will

create It has no choice

At the time I first recognized that this one simple clue could lead to a breakthrough in individual aMitude and performance, most of what we thought we under- stood about the human brain was little more than speculation Medical researchers and mind/brain sci- entists had not yet explored or mapped the mazes of the brain to the extent to which they have today Few

of the brain's complex electro-chemical mysteries were fully understood Even today the brain is only

just beginning to give up its secrets Each day more progress is made and researchers have learned to anticipate an unending drama of new discoveries There was good reason for my excitement over my +

j own rediscovery of the ancient truth which told us that

"what we think is what we become." There were tens

I of thousands of devout believers who, through one

religion or another, were professing the same "truth."

To them it was inevitable, I suppose, that scientific research would one day prove their claim: that we

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR SELF I

control with our own minds most everything in our

lives, including our health, our careers, our personal

relationships, and our futures

But to me it was the scientific understanding of how

the process worked which so ignited my interest What

if, I wondered, we could begin to understand the

workings of the mind so thoroughly that we could

actually learn how to change or override our old

programming and replace it with a specific, word-for-

word new program? And what if we could do it in such

a way that we could affect and improve our attitudes

and our behavior fast!-not through years of difficult I

study or training, but easily and simply, anytime we I

That is exactly what the brain will do An under-

standing of that simple function of our own personal I

computer-the human brain-is what has been miss- I ing from most of the books and most of our motiva-

tional talks An understanding of that one simple re- 1 quirement of our mental machinery can help us make a

simple but vital change in how we accept programming

from others-and, more importantly, what we say

when we talk to ourselves

C M E R THREE

THE DISCOVERY OF any new thing of value is a time of excitement And like the dreams we had as children, of finding chests of gold doubloons and priceless jewels, there is a part of us that keeps seeking the treasure But instead of looking for rubies and gold, I found myself searching for a single small key one that would unlock a door I knew must lead to a better Life for many

I was searching for something that I sensed had been missing from the books and messages and solutions of

so many who had come before me It became obvious

to me that if the final solutions t o a better life, more happiness, and personal fulfilhnent had already been discovered, then something vital was missing; some- thing that was so essential, so important to the whole process of achieving success, that without it, the other solutions would not work, at least not for any length of time

I began to recognize that this "missing ingredient" could be the glue which would, for the first time, bind

all the other elements of success and self-fulfillment together

One look around told me that my first assumptions were correct: even the best-selling success "solu-

I tions" were able to create lasting changes in only a

handfui of the tens of thousands of people who tried them They would work for a time and then the average individual would revert to his old ways After the first excitement of the brand new self-belief wears

I off, the dreams soon give way to the realities of

1 everyday living

Since the old programming controls the habits, it is the old habits which once again take over The new goal of conquering the world and making great changes (which sounded so good in the book) is left to be tackled again some other day I would prefer t o be more optimistic, but how many people d o you know who really have their lives totally "together," (which means something like being "successfully success- ful") day after day, year after year? It has been proved that it is not impossible to live a full and rewading life, day in and day out-it's just highly unusual

So even though we were told that any of us could live highly successful lives, and we were given specific instructions as to how to go about it, very few of us actually have done it At least not for longer than a few weeks or a few months Then it's back to the "old" way, just like before, living life as we always have, maybe getting a little ahead or getting by, and wonder- ing why we aren't doing as well as we think we should Even the very best ideas which we found in best- selling books, even the ones that looked like they would work for certain, would work for a while and then slowly lose their importance in our lives Exciting ideas, great breakthroughs and inspirations for the

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR SELF

mind which seemed to offer so much, became once- read books sitting forgotten on a shelf

Could it be, I wondered, that the missing ingredient

I sought was somehow connected to our individual programming? In order to learn that answer, and in order to learn what does work, I decided that it would help to first understand what does not work and why

ON THE TRAIL

Of all the self-help concepts I have uncovered, the concept of "programming" the brain with a more successful "new picture" of yourself is the most sensi- ble I am not the first behavioral researcher or author

to figure this out Others have come to the same conclusions as I, that whatever you put into your mind-in one way o r another is what you will get back out4.n one way o r another

Although not every writer in the selfdevelopment field has arrived at the same conclusions (only because they were looking at the problem in a different way), there are those who have written books and shown millions the way to a better life if not permanently, at least for a time And while they were leading others toward happiness and a more abundant life, I was busy watching the great philosophies of success In time I began to analyze why only a few of the success principles worked and why most did not

I studied the philosophies of success, analyzed the lists of instructions-the "how-to's" of making more money, being better managers, losing weight, over-

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR SELF

coming depression, getting a better job, setting goals, living with others, managing time, o r just generally

"being more successful." I tried the success tech- niques for myself and talked to dozens of others from many walks of life who had done the same I talked at length with many of the leaders of the success indus- try corporations whose business it is to sell us suc- cess

I talked to the customers who attended the serni- nars, bought the books, or listened to the cassettes I talked to the employees of the companies who were in the business of selling success formulas, to learn if they, too, applied the principles which their companies promoted To learn what really "worked," and what did not, 1 immersed myself in the world of success, examining every facet of that fascinating field from the inside out I consulted with the leaders of the industry

I examined their methods, their systems, and their

"solutions."

During those years of observing, practicing the tech- niques, and analyzing the results of others, I continued

to ask myself the question: If there are so many good

solutions, why aren't they creating permanent

changes in our lives? As an example, why do so many people who read a book on something as worthwhile

as "positive thinking" decide to start thinking difFer- ently and end up, six months later, thinking just as

they did before they read the book? Eventually I came

to seme clear conclusions about "self-improvement": 1) Most of the authors are on the right track For

the most part, they appear to be sincere, caring indi- viduals-true believers in the very best for the human race

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR SELF

2) If you follow th+r advice, most of it will help

I 3) If you stop following their advice, invariably it will stop working Some of the "success principles" I studied work longer (without continued effort) than others However, nothing you read once is permanent; none of the self-help programs continue to work by themselves or without constant reinforcement

Tii- YEARS OF "HOW-WS"

1 You may or may not be aware of the kinds of "self-

, help" concepts I am talking about In case you haven't

; spent a lot of time improving yourself through the reading of self-help literature during the last twenty or thirty years, I will summarize its most popular teach- ings for you The literature says that if you want to be more successful, you should:

Believe In Yourself Keep Your Priorities Straight Take Responsibility For Yourself Create Your Own Future Focus On What You Want Learn To Visualize The Outcome Of Your Goals Never Let Anyone Control Your Destiny For You

Be Creative Think Big Control Stress

Be Aggressive And Assertive Think Positiveiy

7

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR SELF

Chart Your Own Course Set Specific Goals And Review Them Often Spend Some Time Each Day Improving Your Mind Review Your Results And Readjust As Necessary

Be Tolerant

Do Everything With Love Don't Hate Have Courage Recognize That Most Of What We Believe About Life

Is An Illusion

Be Honest

I

Work Hard Believe Money Is Good And

It Will Come To You Have Faith

If You Agree To Do It, Enjoy It

Be Strong Show Affection Manage Your Time Dress Right Learn To Sell Yourself Take Time O f f Believe In A "Higher Self'

Eat Right Live Prudently Seek The Aid Of Others Who Are In Sympathy

With Your Goals Give Assistance To Others Keep Motivated Meditate

Be Optimistic Trust Others And Be Worthy Of Trust -

Recognize That Success Is More Than Money

Be Kind See The "Big Picture"

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR SELF

Take Care Of The Details

Get Organized Don't Procrastinate Stay In Control Keep Fit See Problems As "Opportunities"

Learn Everything You Can About Your Job

Don't Be Afraid Of Success

Be Generous To Others Believe In God Reach A Little Higher Than You Thought You Could

Set Your Sights Take Action Never Give Up

If you d o all that, I have been told, you will be

successful

Even being skeptical, I had to agree If you com- bined the best of all the self-help or self-improvement teachings available to us, it is clear they have given us most of the "keys t o success."

If that is true-and 1 believe that it is-then what's wrong? If the principles, and in many cases even the detailed instructions, are all clearly outlined for us, why d o we need more books, more solutions, and more reminders?

In a recent year it was estimated that more than $200 million worth of self-help books and materials were purchased in the U.S alone! That's quite an industry With all of that, what is missing? What is the missing key? What would complete the puzzle and offer each

of us lasting, individual success and fulfillment?

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR SELF

THE MISSINQ INQREDIElYTS

In my analysis of what worked and what did not, 1 Eound three ingredients which are clearly missing from

almost all of the literature:

1) The first missing ingredient is permanence All

"external" solutions are temporary Even the best of

the ideas work only for a time Without constant attention and effort, even the most exciting success breakthroughs run their course and eventually end up

on our list of "good ideas" and "good intentions." Few, if any, offered built-in ways to keep them work- ing I have yet to find a book that would jump down off the shelf and tap you on the shoulder each morning and say, "Hey! Remember me? Remember what I

W g h t you? Why aren't you still doing it?"

2) The second ingredient missing from most of the

success literature is a knowledge of the physiological

processes of the human brain-based on what we now

know about actual mindlbrain functions Without an understanding of the actual process by which the human brain accepts information (programming) and,

in turn, responds, directs and controls us, it would be

difficult (or impossible) to create any success plan that worked and kept working indefinitely

The brain runs the ship If you want to make a permanent change of any kind, you've got to follow the rules If you want to make a change and make it stick, you've got to do it the way the brain works

3) The third missing ingredient, and the most im-

portant of all, is a new, word-for-word set of direc-

I tions, new programming to the subconscious mind (the control center of the brain) That means a specific

"programming vocabulary" which is worded in a spe-

I cific way, that anyone can use at any time, to erase and

1 replace the old negative programming with positive,

, productive new directions

The only solution which includes all of the three missing ingredients is something called Self-Talk

Think for a moment about some of the things you would like to accomplish or achieve in your lifs-or even those smaller things you would like to change about your life right now Your objective could be to

earn more income, have a better family life, improve your skills, do better in school, d o better at work- anything at all

Whatever means you choose to make the change, unless you first begin to change your old "program- ming," the years of conditioning that keeps you doing

it the old way, the likely outcome is that what you want to accomplish will not work or will not last

CHAPTER FOUR

New Discoveries

DURING THE LAST few years, neuroscientists have learned that much of what we had suspected about the human brain is true: The brain operates very much like

a personal computer It's not that simple, of course For one thing, the brain is many times more powerful,

in most respects, than the most powerful computers

we have yet created Even though the adult human brain weighs only about sixteen hundred grams, about three pounds, and looks more like a lump of gray cauliflower than a desktop computer, the brain func- tions in some important ways much like the man-made computers which are patterned after it

In non-technical language, a computer has three basic parts: a "video" screen, a keyboard, and a program disk The screen is what we use to visually display what we are programming into the computer The screen also displays the results-the words, num- bers, o r pictures that we want the computer to store or compute for us

The keyboard, much like a typewriter keyboard, is what we use to type in the directions and information

36

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR S E L F

we give to the computer And the disk (in a personal

computer it's generally called a "floppy disk") is a small sheet of magnetic recording tape onto which we record the information Whatever we record or pro-

someone changes it by erasing the old information and leaving it blank, or by typing in new information Each of us, along with our brain, has similar parts

In us, the computer's video screen is comparable to our appearance and our actions-what we "display"

to the world around us

In a human being, the computer keyboard is the same as our five senses Anything we hear, see, taste, touch, smell-or anything we say to ourselves is

"programmed" into our brain through our keyboard: our five senses

A personal computer uses a "floppy disk" to record the program and the information which the keyboard feeds to it In the human computer, the floppy disk is

our subconscious mind Everything we experience is

recorded-programmed-into our subconscious minds

If you understand computers, my simplified expla- nation will be obvious and easy to understand If computers are alien to you, it is important only to understand that whatever is programmed into your own personal "mental" computer is permanently pro- grammed That is, whatever programming you have received up to now is just as important and just as permanent as any "program" which has been key- punched into the most powerful man-made computers

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR SELF

To help simplify the complex process of how and why the programming of the human brain affects us as much as it does, let's take a quick, imaginary look into the brain's central control room That is the part of the brain where commands are received and where all the orders are handed out-the part of the brain that makes us feel good, work hard, and get things done

Or when not s o well directed, it makes us slow down, fear the outcome, and stop dead-still in our tracks Imagine standing in the control center of the brain,

in front of a wall which is completely covered with literally tens of thousands of light switches, much like the light switches in our homes

One section of switches controls our moods An- other section governs our health Another group of switches controls our emotions, another our planning functions, another our hopes and dreams Another section is responsible for how we act, how we move, sit, stand, walk, look, speak, react and respond Everything about u s - o u r memory, our judgment, our attitude, our fears, our creativity, logic, and spirit is controlled by the switches in our mental control room When any command is transmitted to the control

mom, the proper directions are sent to the appropriate panels of switches Within a fraction ofa second, some

of those switches are turned off o r turned on

Within the brain itself, a network of tens of billions

of neurons, and electrochemical switches called neurotransmitters, telegraph messages to every part of the brain, selecting just the right section of switches,

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR SELF

1 which in turn switches parts of us ':on" and parts of us

"off ."

The brain's infinitesimally small chemical receiving centers respond to almost imperceptible electrochemi- cal signals which deliver nearly unmeasurable but highly potent chemical substances to our brain, our central nervous system, and to our bodies-which in turn control or affect everything we do

It is the brain's responsibility to take care of us It does so by constantly monitoring our needs and direct- ing the various parts of our systems to take the neces- sary action The brain automatically responds to every one of our unconscious electricaVchemical mental and physical commands-those that are principally con- cerned with keeping us alive

THE BIOCHEMICAL ELECTRICAL IMPULSES CALLED "THOUGHTS"

I

But the brain responds, also automatically, to an-

I other kind of command another exceptionally com-

1 pelling electrical impulse which also turns the switches

in the brain on or off Those electrical impulses, those / special mental commands which direct and control us,

I are called thoughts

Every thought we think, every conscious or uncon- scious thought we say to ourselves, is translated into

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU TALK TO YOUR SELF

yourself, o r have allowed others to program into you, are affecting, directing, or controlling everything about you From the day we were born, we have received a staggering amount of programming It would require an immense computer just to compute the number of individual pieces of information we receive from the world around us in just one year Some of the programming is obvious, but much of it

we are never even aware of receiving

The obvious programs are those comments, ques- tions, and statements which are made to us directly

We are told by our parents, and other adults, what we can and cannot do We are told what we are good at and what we are not We are told how we look We are told what to expect, what to believe in, how to act, and what to do or not to do Because, starting out as children, completely dependent on others, it is imp01 - tant t o our survival to listen and to believe what others

say, we learn t o accept what others tell us .and we learn to believe it

CHAPTER FIVE

We Learn to Believe

WHAT ADULTS TELL US as children has an incredibly

important effect on us It forms what we believe about most of what is going on around us and almost every- thing that we come to believe about ourselves

I still remember the time when, as a grade-school

student, I wanted more than anything I could think of

to play a musical instrument apd be a member of the

school band Along with ten o r twelve other students from my school class, I decided to try out for the band

After being handed a completely alien musical instru- ment and trying to get it to make music in front of the

band instructor, my class teacher, and the other stu- dents, I was dismissed

I knew that I had not done well But it was an hour

later, after the last student of the day had performed,

that I overheard the band director telling my class 1 i

teacher that not only could I not play in the band, but1 ,

had no musical ability and would never be able to play

a musical instrument! What incredible programming I ! for a twelve-year-old boy who had his heart set on I learning how to play!